Jacksonville Presbyterian Church
1 Corinthians 11:2-16 ft. Scott Matson (July 21, 2024)
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> All right, well, hey, good morning again. If you would, go ahead and find your seat and grab your Bible, open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll be starting in verse two. That's on page 1138 in your blue Bibles. They're on the seats if you need those. If we haven't met yet, my name is Scott. I get to be one of the pastors here at Jacksonville Press. It's a privilege for me to serve. And I'm excited to be with you this morning to look at this passage of scripture and see what God has to speak to our church this morning. So, with that said, we're gonna be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 2 through 16. So please hear the reading of God's word this morning. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God. Judge for yourselves, is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him. But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. So my friends, let's pray and ask God to give us wisdom and understanding. As we look at and dig into this passage, for this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, amen. We'll take your seats, please. Keep your Bibles open, your hearts open. I'm not going to make a head covering joke right now. And let's pray and ask the Lord to give His blessing to His word this morning. And so Father, we do thank you, God, for your word. Lord, we thank you for the things that are obvious and clear. And Lord, we also thank you for the parts of it that aren't so clear. Lord, we ask that your spirit this morning would give us wisdom to understand this passage. And Lord also, and perhaps more importantly, Lord, to know, Father, how you would have us as your people, live this out and obey. God, what you've commanded in Scripture. So Lord, we ask your blessing in Jesus' name and for Jesus' glory, amen. Amen. Well, okay, we live in a really interesting and strange world. Did you know that if you were a member of the teedong community in Indonesia, and you were getting married, that the people in your wedding party would smear you and your spouse's body with rice, ash, and flour. And then you and your spouse would not be allowed to use the bathroom for the first three days of your marriage. Yeah. They feel that a husband and wife going through a tough thing like that will help them bond together for tough times. So that's a true story. You can look it up. Did you know that there are certain tribes in China where when a woman is pregnant, her husband will carry her on his back barefoot over hot coals. And they believe that this will help ensure a painless and safe childbirth for the wife. So I was thinking of maybe trying that with Meredith. I'm not sure. We'll see what happens. Perhaps strangest of all. This is the last one I'll use, strangest of all. Did you know that right here in our very own United States, some people actually put pineapple on their pizza? Nope. Weird. Crazy. I know. It is very crazy. We live in a wild world to say the least. And there are all kinds of cultural traditions that are practiced by different peoples that to us and our ears in the West sound kind of strange, kind of weird. And I will go out on a limb here and say, you probably agree with me. The passage that we just read falls into that category. This sounds strange to us. It's difficult to unpack. There's a lot going on in here that Paul is talking about. And it seems like he's talking about this, and then he's talking about this, and then he comes back over here. And wait, I thought he just said that. Now he's saying this. I don't even know what is going on in this passage. And not just that, though. But given our cultural location right now, if some of us-- our thoughts could be heard out loud, and we were being honest, some in the room here would probably say, this kind of sounds offensive to me. This sounds strange and maybe even oppressive toward women. I mean, what's the deal with Paul? Is Paul a misogynist? Does he hate women? Well, the short answer is no, he doesn't. We're going to talk about that in a minute, because we're going to unpack this passage this morning. But my goal this morning, more than just unpacking a strange, interesting passage for you-- I think what would be even more beneficial for all of us as a church-- is to look at what do we do with passages in Scripture like this that are hard to understand that confuse us, and that just, at least at the surface, they don't really seem to make a whole lot of sense. So what do we do as God's people with God's word in those circumstances? And then furthermore, how do we, as disciples of Jesus, live this out? How do we obey? Because this is ultimately what Jesus desires for us. Jesus offers us the most compelling and the most beautiful vision of life that we could ever have, and he communicates that to us through his word. And Jesus' vision and view of life is far better and far more beautiful than that which the world offers us. So we know that. And I think all of us who know Jesus would probably believe that. We'd probably say amen to that. But then we come across a passage like this. And so what do we do with this? How do we put this into practice? And I want to encourage you, as your brother in Christ is one of your pastors, it's okay to have those questions. It's not bad to ask questions. It's okay to feel kind of confused right now. And I dare say it's even okay to feel a little bit off put by this passage. That's okay. God can handle it. He's not mad. He's not surprised. He knows. Okay? So I think that this is God's invitation to us to dig in and to spend some time studying the scriptures and sort of getting answers to these questions. What do we do with hard passages? And then how do we obey them? So this morning, as we're looking at the passage, I just ask that you keep an open heart and an open mind. After all, how great would it be if the Apostle Paul could look at our church and say to us what he said in verse two, "Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you." Wouldn't that be great? If Paul could look at us and say that to us, I think that would be amazing. And so that is our goal, we want to be a church that is fully submitted to the authority of God's Word and that we obey it and that we practice it and we live it out. So with that in mind, one preliminary remark and then we're going to get into the meat of the text here. And the preliminary remark is basically this. I have spent a lot of time studying this passage the last month or so. I knew this one was coming a couple months ago. And so I've spent a lot of time on this one. And basically every Bible scholar and commentator and I mean you ask a hundred Bible scholars what this means, you know, you get a hundred different opinions. What they all agree on is that this is one of the most, if not the single most difficult text to get into in the entire New Testament, okay. So that's an encouragement for you and for me. It's okay to be like what the heck is happening in this passage. I don't get this. Why am I at church this morning? And I brought a visitor for the first time. Thanks. Great. And if you're here for the first time, I am so happy. And I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry. We love you. We're so glad you're here. And actually this is good because what do we do with passages like this? So we have that and then the other thing is I'm going to do a Wednesday night Bible study this week and I'm going to dig into sort of verse by verse and really go through each and every verse and try to unpack this more. So that'll be in your e-news on Wednesday in the email. So be on the lookout for that. I'd encourage you to watch that because I am just telling you right now there is absolutely no way that I'm going to be able to answer every question you have this morning or address every objection. There's stuff in here like Paul says do this because of the angels. I'm not going to get to that this morning. That could be a whole sermon. The whole thing about men and women's hair length, I'm not going to get to that this morning. There's just too much going on in the passage. So I will get to that on Wednesday. So tune in for that. But I really want you to see this morning as we get into this that the focus here I believe of Paul's exhortation to this church is not as much about specifics of certain pieces of clothing or wardrobe choices. I think what's happening here and as I've studied this what I really believe Paul is trying to drill down to here is the issue of distinctions. So keep that word in your mind, distinction. And he focuses primarily on distinction between the sexes and distinctions in the created order. So that I think is Paul's primary goal. So he praises them for remembering the things that he taught them and then he gets into this issue of distinction. And what Paul does is he lays the theological foundation for our passage in verse three. So look at verse three with me again. Paul says, "But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ and the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God." Now to answer maybe one immediate question that might be in your mind, this is not about inferiority or superiority. Paul is not saying that men are better than women or that women are somehow inferior to men. He clearly isn't saying that because he says that the head of Christ is God. And we know that Jesus is God. So this is not about inferiority or superiority. This is about distinction. Paul certainly doesn't hate women or denigrate them. Rather what he's trying to do is lay this foundation of distinction, that there is a distinction, a difference that God has put in the created order between men and women. And headship, that word, does involve authority to some measure, but when Paul says the husband's the head of the wife, that Christ is the head of the man and the head of Christ is God, when he's speaking of headship, Paul is not primarily thinking in categories that we typically think of with head where it's like, "Hey, I'm the head, right? I'm the head honcho here and all y'all underneath me, you do what I say, you go where you exist to please me." That's how we sometimes conceive of headship here in the west. We have more of a command and control kind of framework for that. But that's not what Paul is talking about. Paul was a Middle Eastern Jewish man in the first century. Paul's whole entire framework for society was built upon honor and shame. And so Paul approaches this from an honor and shame perspective. So what he's saying here in verse three is that the way that men and women behave in corporate worship will either bring honor or shame upon their representative head. That's what Paul is saying. And I know this is a different way of thinking than we're used to because Paul's culture was so different than ours, but does that make sense? It's not about command and control and authority. It's about bringing honor or shame upon your representative head. Are you with me on that? Does that make sense? Okay, I'll take that as a yes. So with that paradigm of honor and shame, not inferiority or superiority, now let's look again at verses four through six. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. Or if a wife will not cover her head then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. Now first thing, head covering. I'm going to show you a slide right now of what the head covering would have looked like. So think more of like veil. This wasn't a hat or like a little piece of fabric on the hair. That's not what he's talking about. A first century head covering would have been a veil like that. And so I want you to hold that image in your mind as we're talking about head coverings this morning. And I know some of you are probably thinking, wow, this seems kind of extreme. Like this feels even more oppressive towards women. But what I'm going to ask you to do is try not to associate that image of a woman wearing a veil with the images that you've seen of women in some Islamic countries today. It's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. And perhaps this quote here will help clarify things a little bit for us. This is a quote I got from some Bible scholars and commentators, really helpful. To modern women of Western countries, the Middle Eastern custom of veiling women seems to signify social inequality and even inferiority. To modern women of the East, it is often a symbol of their honor and of the sanctity and privacy of their family life. For a married woman to neglect the covering of her head while in public would traditionally be understood as a sign of her withdrawing herself from her marriage. A move toward the abandonment of the female head covering would have struck many at the time as a move toward a more sexually provocative way of appearing in public, which is what Paul was trying to avoid. Okay, does that shed a little bit of light on what's going on here, honor and shame? Honor and shame were a huge deal in Corinth. Corinth is regarded even today as sort of the Las Vegas of the ancient world because sexual immorality and idolatry and paganism and all these things were just running rampant through the city. And these Corinthian Christians had come from a pagan Gentile background. So Dustin talked a few weeks ago about Paul addresses the issue in chapter 8 of what do you do about meat that's been sacrificed to idols, to false gods? What do you do? Right? That seems like a strange question maybe to us because we just go to Costco and buy beef from a farmer. But for them, this was a big deal. These were Christians who had come out of a pagan idolatrous background and they're trying to figure out how do we follow Jesus in the midst of this incredibly immoral and idolatrous city in which we live. That's what they were trying to figure out. And so Paul wants to be very, very careful to protect the church against any form of sexual immorality. So that begs the question then, for us this morning at Jacksonville, what does a head covering have to do with immorality? That does not make sense to us. It seems strange. But to the ancient Corinthians, this actually would have made a whole lot of sense. Because Paul is saying here that if a man leads in the corporate worship service with his head veiled, that he is bringing shame and dishonor upon Christ, why is that? Well number one, for a man to veil himself, and this is the primary reason, he would be blurring the distinction between male and female. He would be presenting himself intentionally as female and very likely wanting to advertise to people that he was homosexual and looking for lovers. Also he would be introducing forms of pagan idolatry because the priests of the Roman religions in their pagan temples back in this day, when they would lead their services right before they would offer the ritual sacrifice to whatever God they were serving, they would take their toga because they would wear togas, they wouldn't wear what we're wearing right now. They would pull the bottom of the toga up over their head and veil themself and then offer the pagan sacrifice to their false God. Paul is saying, guys, when you are leading in corporate worship, if you veil yourself, you are presenting yourself as both an idolatry and a very sexually immoral man. Does that make sense? And Paul does not want any hint of immorality or idolatry in the church. So then what about the women? Paul says that if the women don't cover their heads while they're leading worship, then they are bringing shame upon their husbands. Why would that be? What does that have to do with anything? Well for a woman to come up to the front of the church to pray or to prophesy and then to take her head covering off and expose her hair and her shoulders in public would be, first of all, very scandalous. It would be signifying to the entire church that she was distancing herself from her husband and that she was sexually liberated and available and looking for new lovers. Can you see how that would bring shame upon her husband in the gathered church? Also, she'd be presenting herself as a priestess of one of the pagan fertility cults in ancient Corinth as well, because they would perform their rituals with their heads uncovered. So it's a strange passage, but is it starting to maybe make a little more sense? Paul here is addressing issues that are very central to the Christian life, idolatry and immorality. And if you know your Old Testament, you know that the two sins that constantly entrapped God's people were idolatry and immorality. And Paul is saying in the church, we are not doing this. There is not going to be any hint of idolatry and immorality. Paul's concern is that when Christians gather for worship, that we present ourselves as Christians, first of all, not as pagans, not as people worshiping false gods, and secondly that we seek to love God and bring honor to him and to love and honor one another, more than ourselves. That's what Paul is concerned about. We are not to draw attention to ourselves by our clothing or our behavior, but rather in everything to reflect all of the glory back to God. That's what Paul's concerned about. Are you with me? Okay. So we've seen, first of all, Paul is concerned about this, maintaining the practice of the distinction between the sexes. Paul does not want men coming into church and leading in church, presenting themselves as women or vice versa. He's very, very clear about that. And so as he continues now, he gets into the relationship between husbands and wives and men and women in creation. And he draws on the creation story in Genesis 2, and again, we see this theme of distinction at work. So look with me here quickly at verses 7 through 9. For a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man, and neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. Now, again, Paul is drawing on the creation story here to show the distinction that exists in the created order between men and women. Once again, this is not about inferiority or superiority, and he's not saying that every man has authority over every woman. It's not what he's saying. Rather what he's trying to say here is that men and women are different. Here are both God's image bearers. We know that from Genesis 1 and 2, and we both bear the glory of God. But we are different, and if you don't believe that men and women are different, ask anyone who's been in a relationship for more than five minutes, and you will know men and women are different. Can I get an amen on that one? Amen. There are good differences, but we're different. God intentionally made us to compliment one another. We are equal but distinct, and it's those distinctions that Paul is very concerned to uphold and maintain. And so for Paul, in his mind and in ancient Corinth, for men and women to adopt one another's dress in worship would be to subvert the created order and to bring shame and dishonor upon one another, upon themselves, upon the church community, and even upon God himself. And Paul doesn't want that to happen. And so as we think about these distinctions between men and women, I want to tell you this morning, friends, that there is a glory in biblical masculinity and in biblical femininity. When the lines of distinction between the sexes get blurred, the image and the glory of God in humans gets diminished a little bit. When a man presents himself as a woman or a woman presents herself as a man, it brings a little bit of a diminishing of the image and the glory of God in that precious person who is made fully in God's image and bears God's glory. And I probably don't need to tell you that this is very relevant today to our world. Our world is telling us all the time that the categories, these distinctions of male and female are fluid and restrictive, that the traditional understanding of gender and sexuality is unjust and it's oppressive and it stifles my self-expression, and nothing could be higher than my self-expression. Every day, my friends, the world is trying to sell you its vision of what abundant life looks like, but it looks vastly different from the abundant life that Jesus offers us. It looks very, very different. And this passage is a perfect example of how the lies that you and I hear every single day are flying directly in the face of the way that God established creation and the way that God wants his people to behave. And so I want to tell you this morning that there is a great blessing and there's flourishing when we submit to God's way of ordering the world, when husbands truly function in a Christ-like way as the heads of their homes and when men and women celebrate the glory of masculinity and the glory of femininity and don't try to blur those lines. There's beauty in that. There's flourishing in that. And so I want you to know this morning, friends, that the life that Jesus has on offer for you is far greater and surpasses greatly that which the world is trying to offer you and trying to sell you. It's a strange passage, I know, but when we look at it, we see how relevant this is for today and we see, man, the offer of life that Jesus gives is so much better than what the world offers. Jesus offers to fully restore the image of God in us who are marred by sin. All the world is offering is to further diminish God's image in us and that's not flourishing. That's not blessing. And God is so good that he wants flourishing for all of his human creatures and maintaining these distinctions is one way that we do that. And so Paul wants to make sure that we understand that while we are distinct as men and women, also we are dependent on one another. Look with me again at verses 11 and 12 really quickly as we begin to close. Paul says, "Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God." Again, my friends, this is about maintaining these God-given distinctions in the created order that God has established. It's not about hierarchical, man-made structures of authority which value aggressiveness and domineering those who are underneath you. After all, what did Jesus say? Whoever wants to be greatest of all has to what? "Serve. Become the slave of all." Greatness in the kingdom of God looks like God incarnate, humbling himself and washing the stinky dirt and excrement-filled feet of his disciples. Even the guy who would betray him moments later. That's what greatness and leadership and headship in the kingdom of God looks like. That's what it looks like. And so these distinctions that God has placed in creation give us the chance to serve one another in love, and as we've seen and will continue to see, steaming others above ourselves and serving one another in love is one of the primary themes and commands of first Corinthians. That's what this is all about. So we've seen that men and women are both equal yet distinct and that this passage upholds the glory and worth of both men and women while reminding us that God is very interested in our maintaining the distinctions he's placed in the created order. So finally then, the big question for every preacher, so what? In other words, what am I going to do with this? This passage, how do you then leave here and take this with you out the door today into tomorrow morning and into your daily life? What do you do with this? Well, the first question I want to answer that I'm sure you're all just begging to ask is are we going to institute head coverings for women at Jacksonville Presbyterian Church? Answer is yes. No, I'm kidding. We're not going to do that. That's a joke. No, we're not going to do that. And why not? That's a good question though. Okay. Why aren't we going to do that? This is God's word and we can't just dismiss strange passages because they seem culturally outdated. That's not a faithful way to approach the biblical text. We can't pick and choose what to accept and what to ignore from God's word. That's how churches and entire denominations go off the rails into theological liberalism. And if you've seen the news at all in the last couple of years, you're seeing that happen all over the place right now. So perhaps a better question is what have we seen this morning as the intent of this passage? And I would suggest that Paul's primary intent in this passage is to highlight for us and command us to maintain and honor the distinctions that God has placed in creation between the sexes, between men and women. When we gather for worship, we honor God by maintaining these clear distinctions that He's put there and that we dress in a way and behave in a way that does not draw attention to ourselves but puts the attention back on God where it belongs. And so Paul does not want the men and the women of Corinth leading in worship while presenting themselves as sexually liberated and immoral and he certainly doesn't want them presenting themselves as pagan priests and priestesses of false religions while they lead God's people in worship. So what we need to do then at Jacksonville Press is we need to hold on to the principle of this passage in one hand. We hold on to this, we obey this, but we obey it in ways that communicate what God has commanded. I would argue, and maybe someone would disagree with me and that's totally fine, but I would argue that if we mandated valing women at Jacksonville Presbyterian Church, we would not be faithfully communicating the distinction that God has placed in creation between men and women because a head covering for us does not communicate anything like that, I would argue. I mean maybe, but I would argue it doesn't communicate that like it did in ancient Corinth. So if we simply followed the surface level reading of the passage without taking the time and doing the work to dig in to what this passage is truly saying and commanding us, we may end up actually being disobedient to scripture after all. So the bigger question I think for us is at Jacksonville Press, how are we as a church community, as a church body, showing that we are in this world, but we are not of it, that we are distinct from this world and that we honor the distinctions that God has placed in the created order? How do we do that? Because God's word is speaking to us as disciples of Jesus, and that is the goal of the Christian life to become more and more like Jesus. That's what it means to be his disciple. So I want to give you a few things you can take with you in your week based on this passage. What is God telling us as a church this morning? A few things, and then I promise I will close with this. First of all, I want to address you men in the room who are married. Men who are married, you are the head of your home. It's not an option. God doesn't say, "Well, if you're doing this stuff, you're the head of your home." No, he says, "You are the head of your home." It's like saying water is wet. It's just what it is. Okay? You're the head of your home if you're married. And so how are you then as a married man being distinct from the non-Christian men in our culture? Jesus wants you, I believe, to be intentionally leading your wife and your children, if you have them, to him through prayer and the reading of the word and intentionally taking the initiative for the spiritual formation of your family. So are you praying not just for but also with your wife and with your kids if you have kids? Are you taking the initiative for the spiritual formation of your home or is your wife having to drag you to church against your will? And is your wife having to do that work of taking the initiative? Because you are the head of your home. So let me give you guys something practical that you can start doing even today if you're not already doing this. And this is super simple and super easy and I promise it will revolutionize your family if you're not doing this already. Make it a goal to spend five minutes every morning and five minutes every evening with your family gathered around you or if you don't have kids, your wife, reading scripture, read a little bit of scripture, talk about it and then pray. That simple. Start there. Try that. I promise you, you'll see amazing results. Morning and evening family devotions, guys, you can do this. We can all do this. And given the fact that marriages and families all around us are in trouble, guys, we have to do this. This isn't an option. We have to do this. We have to function as the heads of our homes, as Paul commanded in this passage. Ladies there is something in here for you too to take with you this week. If you're married, are you honoring and respecting your husband? And one way that you can do that is the way that you speak about your husband to others when he's not around. So are you speaking about him in ways that build him up or in ways that are complaining and tearing him down? How are you talking about your husband when he's not around? That's one practical way you can honor and respect him. And finally, to my brothers and sisters in the room who are single, are you living in a life of holiness and sexual purity? Living a life that is distinct from the world around you. The good life that Jesus gives us is the opposite of the you do you and be authentic ethos of our world and our culture, but Jesus alone knows what it means to truly flourish as a human because he's our God and he's our Creator. He made us and he knows what we need to do and how we need to live to flourish. And honoring these distinctions is one way we do that. And I have good news for you. If you've messed up in these areas of headship or of distinction, and guess what? All of us have. Every single one of us have messed this up. None of us get this perfect. I have good news for you. The gospel. Jesus offers you his forgiveness. He died on the cross in your place, bearing your sin and all your shame and he paid for it with his blood. And then three days later, he rose from the dead and he offers you now his life, his new life by his spirit. He has freed you from the sin which enslaves you and offers you his forgiveness, salvation, freedom and healing and healing of your sin as well. So come again to Jesus this morning and let's all recommit ourselves to obey his will, even the passages that are hard and strange. Let's commit ourselves as God's beloved people to obey his will because at the end of the day, we don't just study God's word just to nerd out. Some of us do, guilty as charged, and that's okay. That's fine, but that's not the end goal. The end goal is not just to learn a bunch of interesting things about God. The end goal of reading your Bible and of coming to church and hearing sermons is spiritual formation. It's to become more like Jesus, to put into practice the things that Jesus has commanded. Hearing the things in a passage like this, that's what it means for us to be his disciples. So we're going to pray here in just a second, but I want you to know also a final word of pastoral encouragement. Just rest assured that even though we don't get it perfect, as your pastors and your elders, we are not going to soft pedal or back down from what God's word says on these tough issues, like gender and marriage and sexuality and all these things. Pray for us, please, as your pastors and as the session, as your elders, but we're going to do the hard work of teaching God's word and of holding fast to God's word and honoring Him as a church. That is our desire because we want to be a church community characterized by obedience so that Paul could look at us and say, "Now I commend you, Jacksonville Presbyterian Church, as you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions, even as I have delivered them to you." Wouldn't that be awesome? That's our goal and that's our desire for God's glory. Let's pray. Father, we give you thanks, God, for your word. And Father, we give you thanks, Lord, for every part of your word. Even passages like this, Lord, that are hard to understand, that are very culturally different from what we're used to, that sound strange to our ears. Lord, we thank you. And Father, I just pray that you would help all of us here at Jacksonville Press this morning, God, to honor and maintain and live out the distinctions that, Lord, you have placed in the order of creation. Lord, the distinction between men and women, the distinctions, Lord, that exist that you've put there. And Lord Jesus, God, as we gather to worship you as your beloved people, God, may we reflect the glory of masculinity and the glory of femininity, Lord, that you have put in creation. And, God, thus bring honor to you, living as your image bearers. And Father, as we pray for our church community gathered this morning, Lord, we also pray for those both who are with us and who are not able to be with us this morning, Lord, due to illness or other needs or life situations, Lord. And Father, we lift up to you, God, this morning as a community. Abi Lewis and Shiloh Rudd, Karen Applegate, Bailey Taylor, Clyde and Lorraine Hoffman, Jim Solts, Sean McCoy and Paul Deller and all those who are recovering from surgery and illness this season. Father, would you place your hand on them, Lord, would you touch them? Father, be with them, and God, remind them of your great love for them, Lord. We thank you, Jesus, that we are part of your church, God, your redeemed, called out people. And Lord, we pray for another expression of your church, Lord, in our valley, God, we pray for community Bible church of Central Point. Lord, bless them, Lord, as they preach the gospel, as they teach the scriptures, and we pray, Lord, Jesus, that they also would be a church, God, that loves your word, and Lord honors the distinctions, Lord, that you've placed in your word, and that lives, Lord, holy, called out lives in this world. Father, we thank you for our missionaries that we get to support, and we pray again this month, Lord, for our friend and our brother, Mike Coon, Lord, who is heading up the training of pastors and church planters in difficult nations in the world. And Father, we pray particularly this morning, Lord, for the church in Sierra Leone, that he works among, Lord, over there in Africa, and Lord, as he prepares to hand over the training of pastors to native Sierra Leone and pastors, Father, we praise you for that amazing work. And we ask, Lord, Jesus, that you would continue to build your church in Sierra Leone, Lord, in the face of religious hostility and persecution, God. Lord, bless all of our fellow Christians over there, and Holy Spirit, strengthen the church for faithfulness. And finally, Father, we lift up our country. God, we pray for President Biden, for former President Trump, and Lord, for all of our rulers, and those in authorities, Lord, as your word commands us to do. Lord, we thank you for our rulers, and Lord, we just pray for them. We pray for all of them. We pray, Lord, Jesus, that your spirit would guide them and lead them. We pray, Lord, for the areas where our rulers, because they're human, they need to repent of sin. And Lord, we ask for that to happen, and we ask that you would bless them, and that they would rule and lead in a way that is just and righteous, and that Father reflects the distinctions, God, that you have put in creation. God bless them, be with them. And finally, we pray, Father, for our firefighters, Lord, who are on the front lines fighting all these fires, Lord, the Shelly Fire, the Salt Creek Fire, the Bogus Fire, the Middle Fork Fire, and all the other fires, Lord, right now. We pray for protection for our firefighters. We pray blessing on them, and Father, we also pray for the men and women who are in harm's way. Lord, losing homes, losing businesses, God, we just pray that you would protect people and bring an end to these fires, Lord. Father, we, as your beloved people, love you, and God, we call out to you for mercy. And all of these things, in Christ's name, amen. [MUSIC]